Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1887-04-16
NO. 81.

self he resorted to a swindling
scheme which engulfed the earnings
of half the wage.w0rkers in the city.
A mob, of which the servant girls of
the city formed no insignificant part.
clamored for vengeance. Meigs,
nothing daunted, loaded aud armed
a vessel, and sailed out of the
Goldea Gate, with a government
tug in hot pursuit. The pursuers
prudently avoided close quarters,
and Meigs landed in Chill, where he
Immediately built a railroad, receiv
ing as ais share of the profits 81,
100000. Next he turned up in Peru,
and honeycombed the heart of the
Andes with system of roads, from
which he realized fabulous sums of
money. His generosity was in pro
portion to his wealth. He gave a
banquet which cost him 100000,
and distributed gifts worth $3.50, 900
more. Other things being equal,
Meigs appears to have leaned to
honesty rather than fraud. lie
made a proposition to the authori-
ties of California to pay his debts on
condition that he be allowed to re-
turn with impunity. The PROPOSE
ton was rejected, and, with all his
wealth, he died in exile.
The moral propensions do not APP
pear to have been so evenly balanc.
ed in Kissane. His early life was
an epitome of crime. He vibrated
between the common swindler and
the business sharper. When fairly
launched upon prosperous career,
as in Cincinnati, he seemed unable
to resist his natural bent for rascality.
He ran up and down the gamut of
crime like the fingers Of an expert
performer on the keys of a piano,
and he crowded an average crimi-
nails history into couple of years.
Murder, arson and forgery are few
of the peccadilloes with which he
was charged at that time. Hunted,
jailed, sentenced to hard labor, his
natural sense seems to have at length
obtained the mastery over his predi-
lections, and he joined the hair
Drained expedition to Nicaragua to
escape his indignant pursuers, and
repent at leisure for the blunders
which had wrecked his earlier career.
We say blunders, for no deeper
sense of wrong appears as yet to
have disturbed his conscience. Open
crime was thenceforward abandon
ed, and in California, that heaven of
Adventures, we find him ragged,
hungry, and beggar, but convinc.
ed that honesty is the best policy"
A change of name obliterated tenn
porariy the traces of his former life,
and he speedily realized the most
precious rewards of honest toll, a
loving wife, wealth, and respect
able social position. What con-
trast, and what a lesson! The
novelist cannot match it with his
Imagination, and the moralist can
fairly revel in illustration.
But Nemesis was on his track,
and there is a still more valuable
lesson to be derived from these ex
traordinary incidents IN California.
Kissane has been unearthed by some
of his victims and restitution de-
manded. This would be a small
matter if the identity went no fur
ther than Kissane, but when he is
recognized as William X. Rogers,
the prosperous and highly respect
able farmer and mine owner of
Sonoma county, who, by years of
probity and industry, has succeeded
in allying himself with the most
prominent families in the state, and
winning the confidence and esteem
of his neighbors to such an extent
that they almost refuse to credit his
strange story, his cup is full to the
brim and running over. Far deeper
than Meigs in his enforced exile, he
feels the truth of the biblical axiom,
1.-THE way of the transgressor is
hard" 1t might be charitable to
both of these men, in consideration
of their after lives, to cover their
crimes with veil, but it would not
be charitable to society. The ex-
ample would be altogether bad
They deliberately made their bed,
and they must lie in it, to deter
others from following in their foot.
steps.-AmericdR